11. Zero Leverage #2
She sat in a bolted plastic chair in the visitation room of the federal women’s correctional camp, keeping her arms crossed tightly over her chest. The room was a cavernous cinderblock hall, echoing with the deafening, overlapping noise of fifty different conversations.
It smelled of industrial floor wax, stale sweat, and the greasy vending machine popcorn that families bought in the corner.
Sienna stared down at her hands resting on the metal table.
She wanted to cry just looking at them. Her hands ached constantly from her assigned kitchen shift, the skin ruined from plunging them into scalding, sanitized dishwater for eight hours a day.
Her blonde hair, once perfectly toned and blown out twice a week, was pulled into a frizzy, dull knot at the base of her neck.
She bounced her leg anxiously, her cheap canvas slip-ons tapping against the linoleum floor.
She checked the digital clock mounted on the far wall. Ten minutes into the visiting hour. Lorraine was late.
Sienna chewed on the inside of her cheek.
She desperately needed her mother to show up.
She had run out of commissary money three days ago, which meant she was out of the heavily marked up instant coffee and the decent shampoo.
Worse, she was out of the packaged snacks that kept her from having to eat the gray, unrecognizable meat served in the chow hall.
More importantly, she needed an update on the appeals lawyer.
The overworked public defender had bullied her into taking the five-year plea deal for conspiracy, but Sienna was convinced a ‘real’, expensive attorney could get the sentence vacated.
The heavy steel doors at the front of the room buzzed loudly, the magnetic lock disengaging.
When Lorraine finally walked through, Sienna’s breathing hitched.
Lorraine appeared completely hollowed out.
Her mother had spent her entire adult life projecting an aura of effortless, untouchable wealth.
But the woman walking across the visitation room looked like a ghost. Her hair, tied back with a cheap plastic clip, lacked its usual expensive gloss.
The Botox had completely worn off, leaving deep, prominent lines of stress etched around her mouth and eyes.
She was wearing a plain gray cardigan that Sienna was certain came from a discount department store.
She was slumped, defeated by a weight Sienna had never seen her carry.
Lorraine navigated the rows of metal tables and sat down across from her. She didn’t smile. She didn’t reach out to hold Sienna’s hand. She just set a small clear plastic coin purse on the surface between them and looked at her.
“Mom. Finally,” Sienna said, leaning forward urgently.
She dropped her voice to a harsh whisper, hyperaware of the women at the tables next to them.
“Why didn’t you answer my calls on Tuesday?
I ran out of money on my books. I need you to put another five hundred in the account.
The food here is disgusting, basically inedible, and they only give us two rolls of toilet paper a week.
I had to trade my last deodorant just to get a decent pillow. ”
Lorraine offered no response. Her eyes were blank, stripped of the nervous, frantic urgency she used to show the second Sienna was mildly inconvenienced.
“Mom, are you listening to me?” Sienna pressed, her frustration rising, a sharp edge creeping into her voice.
“And what did the appeals lawyer say? Did you call the firm in the city? The public defender forced me to take the five years, but it wasn’t my fault!
Chase manipulated me. I just need a real lawyer to file a motion to reduce the sentence. Have them argue I was under duress.”
“There is no appeals lawyer, Sienna,” Lorraine said. Her voice was entirely flat, scraped clean of any maternal warmth.
“What do you mean there’s no lawyer?” Sienna demanded, her voice spiking, drawing a brief look from the corrections officer standing near the wall.
She lowered her tone, leaning closer to the plexiglass separating them.
“You said you were going to call them. You promised you were going to fix this!”
“With what money?” Lorraine asked, her tone hardening into something brittle and cold.
“Use your savings! Sell the condo!” Sienna’s eyes welled up with tears.
She slipped into the routine she had used since childhood—the wide, desperate eyes, the trembling lip, the sheer helplessness that had always forced her mother to step in, write a check, and save her.
“I can’t stay here, Mom. It’s awful. The beds are basically concrete slabs.
The women in my dorm look at me like they want to hurt me. You have to get me out.”
Lorraine didn’t soften. She didn’t reach for her purse to offer a tissue.
“The condo is gone,” Lorraine said, staring coldly at her youngest daughter.
Sienna blinked, the tears stalling in her eyes. The sheer impossibility of the statement left her stunned. “What?”
“Wren’s lawyers filed civil suits against both of you for the theft of the estate,” Lorraine said, the words spilling out with a bitter, venomous edge.
“My finances were caught in the asset freeze because I co-signed your car loan and because you linked your credit cards to my accounts to hide the money Chase was funneling to you. The bank foreclosed on the condo last month. I live in a one-bedroom rental out in the suburbs now.”
Sienna stared at her, going entirely pale. “But… your trust…”
“Frozen,” Lorraine interrupted, her voice trembling with a rising, purely selfish fury.
“The country club revoked my membership the day after your arrest. My friends stopped returning my calls by Thanksgiving. I can’t even go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood without people whispering about me.
I have spent the last eight months paying bottom-tier legal fees just to avoid a federal indictment over the money you and Chase transferred into my name! ”
“I didn’t know he was doing that!” Sienna pleaded, a sharp, sudden wave of panic taking hold. “Mom, please! I didn’t know how the money worked. I was scared of him! He told me to keep quiet!”
“You weren’t scared. You were greedy!” Lorraine hissed, leaning across the metal table, her gaze hardening with profound resentment.
There was no grief for Wren in her eyes, only the agonizing reality of her own ruined life.
“You couldn’t just leave well enough alone!
You couldn’t just let her have her boring husband!
You had to have her money. You had to have the house in Tulum.
I spent my entire life building a respectable name and managing every little mistake you ever made, and you dragged me into a federal fraud investigation! ”
Sienna gripped the edge of the table so hard her cracked knuckles turned white.
The safety net was gone. Lorraine wasn’t looking at her with maternal concern. She was looking at the person who had destroyed her comfortable life, and she blamed Sienna for burning it all down.
“Please,” Sienna sobbed, her practiced tears giving way to real, breathless panic.
She abandoned the excuses, leaning over the table and begging.
“Mom, please don’t leave me in here. I have four more years.
Four years. I’ll do whatever you want. Just please help me. Find the money. Take out a loan.”
Lorraine looked at her for a long, silent moment. The exhaustion on her face was absolute. The old maternal instinct to swoop in and fix Sienna’s mistakes simply wasn’t there.
“I put fifty dollars on your commissary account,” Lorraine said, her voice dropping back to a dead, hollow monotone. “That is the absolute last of my savings. It cost me half a tank of gas just to drive up here today. Don’t ask me for more. There is no more.”
Lorraine stood up from the metal chair. She picked up her cheap, unbranded purse and turned her back to the table.
“Mom!” Sienna cried, half-standing, ignoring the sharp, warning look from the corrections officer guarding the aisle. “Mom, wait! Don’t walk away! What am I supposed to do?”
Lorraine didn’t look back. She didn’t pause. She walked steadily across the linoleum floor, waiting for the corrections officer to buzz the exit. She pushed through the metal doors, the magnetic lock clicking shut behind her with brutal finality.
Sienna sank back into the hard plastic chair. The relentless din of the visitation room washed over her, pressing in from all sides. For the first time in her life, she was entirely alone, and no one was coming to save her.